Anybody else watching THE BUDDHA, on PBS???

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9 pm Central time. Two hours long, narrated by Richard Gere.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Saw the first run this evening. It was very interesting.

[cbayer]

2. I plan to watch it. I am on pacific time. Looks great!

:hi:

[gateley]

3. Thanks for the heads up! I'll "check my local listings." nt

[eShirl]

4. not what I expected

I thought it was going to be a history of the development and spread of Buddhism throught various countries and cultures over the centuries. I gave it a good 20 minutes before i turned it off.

The glowing, glassy-eyed enthusiastic people kind of turned me off, but they do that no matter what religion they are.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. I never noticed Robert Thurman to be glassy-eyed.

I never noticed The Dalai Lama to be glassy-eyed.

I never noticed the monks and nuns at the Mahayana Buddhist temple I used to attend in Houston to be glassy-eyed.

I never noticed the people at Hindu temples I have attended to be glassy-eyed.

I never noticed the people at Jewish synagogues I have attended to be glassy-eyed.

The people I HAVE noticed that are glassy-eyed are Jesus Freaks (evangelicals) and Jews for Jesus.


YMMV. :shrug:

[eShirl]

7. really?

huh.

[elleng]

11. Intro says its about Buddha's life.

Sounds like you were expecting History of Buddhism, or somesuch. Would be interesting.

[eShirl]

12. Yes.

I landed on PBS shortly after it began, after channel-surfing for something that looked interesting.

[Alluvium]

6. Decent documentary, but...

While it's perfectly fine to focus on the folklore behind Buddhism, I think this documentary would have been much better had they focused on Buddhism itself. Granted, I was very pleased to see that they actually covered the mistranslation of the first noble truth ("Life is suffering"? How dreadfully emo. "Life is inevitably fraught with dissatisfaction" makes a lot more sense.) and that the subject matter did cover a few things I didn't know about the Buddha. Overall, it was good for what it was... But I would like to have seen more of a focus on Buddhism itself.

[postulater]

8. Welcome to DU!

[RagAss]

13. Me too.

[Zen Democrat]

9. I watched THE BUDDHA and then UNMISTAKEN CHILD. An amazing evening of television.

[protest_dude]

10. Richard Gere is an idiot!

Richard Gere!!!!!

He makes me angry.

He has devoted his life to overthrowing the Chinese Government.

Tibetan Fuedalism HURRAH! HURRAH!!!

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

[Odin2005]

14. Oh look, a Tibet-bashing China Shill.

I bet it's the same one that was TS'ed a couple weeks ago. :eyes:

[Odin2005]

15. Damn, I missed it!

:(

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. go to pbs.org and you can buy the DVD.

[charlie]

17. Or catch it online

http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/program/